Weatherwatch + Oxford holidays | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/news/series/weatherwatch+travel/oxford
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A truly soggy boat racehttps://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/nov/20/weatherwatch-rain-oxford-boatrace
<p>The climax is an act of self-immolation during the boat-race, and a storm signalled "by a loud and prolonged thunderclap." The Duke of Dorset is about to give up everything for Max Beerbohm's eponymous heroine Zuleika Dobson (1911) when the tumult begins. "A sudden white vertical streak slid down the sky. Then there was a consonance to split the drums of the world's ears, followed by a horrific rattlings as of actual artillery – tens of thousands of gun-carriages simultaneously at the gallop, colliding, crashing, heeling over in the blackness. Then, and yet more awful, silence: the little earth cowering voiceless under the heaven's menace. And, audible in the hush now, a faint sound; the sound of runners on the towing-path cheering the crews forward, forward."</p><p>Another faint sound came to the duke's ears. "It he understood when a moment later, he saw the surface of the river alive with infinitesimal fountains. Rain! His very mantle was aspersed. In another minute he would stand sodden, inglorious, a mock. He didn't hesitate. 'Zuleika!' he cried in a loud voice. Then he took a deep breath, and, burying his face in his mantle, plunged." Students follow his example. "And over all this confusion and concussion of men and man-made things crashed the vaster discords of the heavens, and the waters of the heavens fell ever denser and denser, as though to the aid of waters that could not in themselves envelop so many hundreds of struggling human forms."</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/nov/20/weatherwatch-rain-oxford-boatrace">Continue reading...</a>WeatherOxford holidaysSat, 20 Nov 2010 00:07:44 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/nov/20/weatherwatch-rain-oxford-boatracePhotograph: Tom JenkinsStruggling human forms during a very wet Oxford Boat Race. Photograph: Tom JenkinsPhotograph: Tom JenkinsStruggling human forms during a very wet Oxford Boat Race. Photograph: Tom JenkinsTim Radford2010-11-20T00:07:44Z